Tiny Garden

I have always wanted one of these tiny little ecosystems, but it has always ended with the wanting. Never doing. I have seen lots of little terrariums recently online, and thought that might be a good place to start.
Found a cool old canning jar, complete with lid, at a garage sale on Friday. Now it is our very own terrarium. Odin helped with all aspects of it. He is very excited about "his" little garden. It is currently in our kitchen, nest to his Chia pet. It makes me smile every time I see it. Well worth it. I hope I can keep it alive.
I used the "real" camera for this one. The battery quit just after taking this picture. I hope to post more after it is done charging, but could not wait to share.

Earth Day

Last weekend, John's parents came down for a visit. John and Grandpa were busy 0n Saturday trouble shooting the trailer wiring on the Jeep (turns out the parts we bought were bad from the start!). Grandma, Odin and I went to a local park for an early Earth Day cleanup. Odin was a great help, climbing into the brush and retrieving items. We had two big bags, and very soon after starting had one for garbage and one for recyclables.. There is a lake in the park and we ended up on the leeward side picking empty bottles out of the waters edge. At the end of the morning the recyclables bag was the full one. It was an event put on by Friends Of Eagan 's Core Greenway.
I have been thinking about it all week.
The amount of plastic in a small sub-urban lake was to me, astounding. Thinking about the amount floating in the oceans and washing up on shores is staggering to me.
Yes, plastic has many great uses, but disposal options are not so great. Recycling is a good option, far better than landfill or incineration, but it just does not seem to be enough. Not enough oppertunities, not enough encouragement, not enough participation. For the amount of ways you can buy plastic, just in food packaging, there do not seem to be enough options for disposal.
That said, so many places that we frequent have recycling bins, but they end up with more garbage in them. Personal choices are good, but it almost seems like the people are starting to come around in being conscious of packaging, but the food companies are going wildly the other direction. Last week I saw a parent hand their child a single serve apple sauce packet with an integrated straw top. Really? Convenience is nice, but when is the big AHA! moment that the convenience comes at a very high price to all of us.

I ended up bringing the bag home to clean up the bottles so they would be taken as recyclables. So basically, I was washing garbage. I was hesitant to do it, it would have been easier if soemone else had done it. But isn't that the whole problem? People wanting others to take care of the dirty work for them, Personally I think it's time to step up.

coolest toy book. EVER

Creative play for your toddler : Steiner Waldorf expertise and toy projects for 2 - 4s / Christopher Clouder and Janni Nicol.
by Clouder, Christopher.
	London : Gaia, 2008. Call #: 649.51 Cloud Authors: Clouder, Christopher. Nicol, Janni.

I made a project from it. It took a while, I will not lie. But Odin really likes it. I have plans to to try others too, all the supplies purchased. Now just need to channel the craftiness.
I gave him the pony in his Easter basket and he has been entranced with it. He saw me sewing the mane and tail on, so he knows I made it, and maybe that is why he likes it.. Or maybe he likes it's intrinsic handmade look.
It is a really cool book.

Easter

We had such a lovely Easter. A childhood friend of mine and her husband and daughter drove in from Madison just to see us! I have known her since I was about Odin's age, he thought that was really neat.
It gave me an excuse to make a big, delicious brunch, bliss.
We did a mini egg hunt in the living room Easter morning, not the dyed eggs, we didn't trust our memory enough to use real eggs indoors.


Baskets came later in the day. We went for a nerdy theme this year. All sorts of neat outdoor exploration items, well suited for hikes and canoe trips..
binoculars

magnifying glass

also an aquatic net, oh yeah, John and I had baskets also thanks largely to my sister, Thanks Jamie!

John had a trip and left about 10 inutes after this picture was taken.. I had the sugar high boy to contend with.....

Eggs, bubbles

Last night reading blogs, I decided we might try dyeing some eggs. We tried 3 different natural food based dyes. Red cabbage, turmeric, and apricot/red chili powder because that is what we had. I knew the cabbage and turmeric had a pretty good chance as they always stain my sink, the apricots were way old and thought I'd give them a try.




We boiled each of the foodstuffs, cooled them, added a bit of vinegar and put the hard cooked eggs in and let them sit in the fridge for about 8 hours.









They turned out great - especially for starting with brown eggs! One egg did not get put in a dye bath due to a broken shell.. It is the one still very brown egg. We'll call it the control group.


Before the great unveiling we went outside to make big bubbles.. It was a beautiful day.

_______ killed the cat, but it was the wonder . . .

Curiosity.
He has always been very interested in things. How they work, why does X happen. One day last winter John found himself on the verge of explaining how gravity works and saved himself by saying, "Hey look Christmas lights!" (there really were Christmas lights). That has since been our exclamation when things are getting dangerously close to the way too complex for both of us at this very moment.
Example:
Operation underwear is well underway and going rather well.
Today I was waiting for him to pull up his pants and wash his hands when I heard the toilet flush, again. No, I was not worried about inappropriate items taking a dip, but I was right to be worried about something.
After knocking on the door and entering briskly, I found Odin, standing by the toilet, pants still around ankles, with the very ends of his bangs wet. Big water droplets on his bangs. When I asked him what he was doing he simply replied, "What."
I then asked if he was trying to figure out how the toilet worked, he said "yes." Fast forward to us watching a video of how toilets work online.

I know the curiosity is an asset, but sometimes. . . . ewwwwwwww.

Smells like teen spirit

Last weekend Odin and I went up to see Grandma and Grandpa, actually it was really to get in one last day of skiing.. Oh and we left Michelle at home for some much needed R & R. We had a great time skiing, Odin rode the J-bar by himself. I had a panic moment watching him go up and realizing that we had not discussed getting off. He took cues from a little girl ahead of him and figured it out on his own. He had so much fun on it he went up again.

Oh the way back to the Twin Cities on Sunday Odin was chattering randomly, whilst I was listing half- heartledly to NPR. The show was interviewing a man that wrote a book about Kurt Cobain, and I was not really paying attention. At the end of the segment they played the song Smells Like Teen Spirit, and I turned it up. About halfway throught the song in a whiny preteen voice, "Oh dad, TURN THAT MUSIC OFF!" Yeah- I wasn't expecting that for a few years. I guess he is not a fan of the whole grunge scene. So much for thinking that my generations music was so cool that all future generations would love it too.